Alone

String quartet

Categories: ,

Voicing/instrumentation: String quartet
Composer: Sam Kauffman
Duration: 19:00
Year: 2023

This string quartet featuring the cello is my most personal composition. It’s unlike any of my other works. The others all started with some variation of “I want to write something that will sound good.” With this piece, the guiding idea was “I want to write something that will express loneliness.” That is the singular goal of this work.

This piece is the past four years of my life, in musical form.

The cello represents one who is lonely. It is the protagonist. Even when it seems like the cello has the least interesting part, holding one note for a dozen measures, it is still the one telling the story.

In between several seemingly interminable isolated cello moments, the piece passes through a whirlwind of the emotions that accompany loneliness.

I hope your audience doesn’t enjoy this piece, but I hope it touches them.

I am not offering this for sale until it has had its premiere. If you are interested in it, contact me.

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